The Northern Marianas College-Cooperative, Extension and Education Service recently assisted a resident on converting her pigpens to aquatic tanks for tilapia production, and expressed its wish to assist the Commonwealth in becoming less reliant on various imported goods.<\/p>\n
This is according to aquatic specialist Mike Ogo, who indicated Friday that one of NMC-CREES\u2019 goals is to assist farmers in the hopes of having security in terms of food.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs you know, just recently we had a Chinese submarine that circled Guam, and what if that escalates into something where we won\u2019t be able to bring food from Asia or California,\u201d Ogo said. \u201cBy starting to do something like this, at least we are insured that if things like that happen, we could supply ourselves.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ogo was referring to Ines Guerrero\u2019s production facility for tilapia, which features nine tanks and a recirculation aquatic system that prevents harmful wastes from damaging surrounding areas.<\/p>\n
Ogo said with more local production of crops, livestock, and seafood, among others, the demand for importation of goods would be lessened, resulting in \u201cmoney spent\u201d circulating within the Commonwealth.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe other good thing is that now, because we are an import society, money leaves the CNMI, but if we produce our own shrimp, tilapia, seafood, livestock, and vegetables, and we become self-reliant and self-dependant, then the money remains in the CNMI and circulates in the CNMI. That\u2019s the whole idea that we at CREES are trying to promote\u2014to help the economy in that way and to be insured of a food supply,\u201d he said. \u201cWe are looking at the bigger picture.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ogo said technology, although invented and refined elsewhere, is being brought in to benefit the Commonwealth.<\/p>\n
\u201cTechnology like this [re-circulation aquatic system] was invented and refined elsewhere, but we brought it here,\u201d he said. \u201cIf its applicable, why not use it, right.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ogo said the system is currently being used by several farmers on Saipan, Tinian, and Rota. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe heard of and saw this from the U.S. Virgin Islands. We have the same type of factors\u2014both being islands and U.S. jurisdictions. It was brought to Saipan, and we\u2019re now applying it, and now this is the fruit.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a new concept and people are slow in adapting it,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019re promoting the concept, and at the end of the day, everybody benefits.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Northern Marianas College-Cooperative, Extension and Education Service recently assisted a resident on converting her pigpens to aquatic tanks for tilapia production, and expressed its wish to assist the Commonwealth in becoming less reliant on various imported goods.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-86528","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86528","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=86528"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86528\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=86528"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=86528"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=86528"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}